


(I dunno) Who's Gonna Kiss You When I'm Gone

by Dogtagsandsmut



Series: Love Me Now [1]
Category: Letterkenny (TV)
Genre: Americans trying to write Canadian fic, Boys In Love, Hicks - Freeform, Internalized Homophobia, M/M, Marriage, christians, hockey players, it's just a piece of paper, more Canadian slang than you can wag a dick at, skids - Freeform, sorry - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-05
Updated: 2017-01-05
Packaged: 2018-09-15 02:10:48
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,550
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9214370
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dogtagsandsmut/pseuds/Dogtagsandsmut
Summary: This doesn’t come easy to Wayne, this caring thing. This open thing. Loving and being loved. He’ll figure it out though, so long as Daryl gives ‘im enough time and enough rope to hang himself.This is a repost because I kept finding so many mistakes originally that I went ahead and took it down to retool it. In my mind this takes place in the same universe as EnbyMunro's Hard No series, and they have graciously allowed me to borrow from those fics, which can be found here. https://archiveofourown.org/series/452875. If you haven't read thosefics (and I'm betting you have if you've found your way here) go do so because they are amazing fics.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [EnbyMunro](https://archiveofourown.org/users/EnbyMunro/gifts).



Wayne squints into the sun. “ _Hard no_.”

Katy shrugs one shoulder, kicking a clump of mud that had fallen off the wheel of a tractor not three days prior. “It’s just a piece of paper.”

Wayne turns stiffly, looks over at the field of barley, turns again and stares Katy down. “Don’t fix what’s not broken, Katy.” He storms off to the barn, off to Darry and the guaranteed silence of work to be had. 

* * *

 

The first time Wayne has cause to rethink upon those words is in the big city. He usually hates going into the city but this time Daryl had really fucked the pig, and the festering cut on his hand that Wayne had originally snorted off as minor thing had grown into a much bigger thing than just rubbing a little dirt on, or even visiting the town clinic. _Septic_ , the nurse had muttered, and so off they went, Wayne driving the truck, Katy riding shotgun and Darry laid out in the bitch seat, panting and red-eyed but otherwise non-verbal.

That hadn’t been the problem, though; no, the problem had come once Wayne had brought him into Saint Mary’s and Darry had tilted off the hard plastic lobby room seat and crashed straight onto to the floor. Wayne had lost it for a minute, shaking Darry and shaking all over and screaming, “Doctor! DOCTOR, IS THERE A DOCTOR?!”

The aides had taken Darry back on a stretcher and refused to let Wayne follow. The nurse at the front desk kept waving to catch his attention, but it became ever more apparent to her that Wayne was determined to ignore her, so she’d finally summoned up a hospital security thug to stand in front of the swinging doors and menace.

“Sir. Sir! You can’t go back there. Sir! If you want to see him you need to _come see me first._ ”

Wayne glanced between the nurse and the security guard several times. He sized up the fight, the odds of success, angles of approach, blows and counterblows—the only non-farming math he ever seemed to use these days—all flitting through his brain.

“ _Sir!”_ Feisty, this one. Cracking his neck and rolling his shoulders he marched over to the front desk.

“He’s my best friend. I need to be with him,” Wayne announced.

“Mmm hmm,” she intoned with a skeptical eyebrow. “Family only.”

“He’s my brother,” Wayne gritted out. “I need to be there.”

He glanced back to his seat, then stomped over, grabbing the clip board Darry and he had just been filling out. Its pages fluttered with his movement, silently spilling out a history of injuries earned by years of hard labor from working the land, and the occasional ill-advised fight with man or rodent. He threw the clipboard at her through the window. “Here. Look.”

She glared at him, blowing a lock of hair from her face, then flipped haphazardly through the pages. “I don’t see nothing about a brother.” She pointed out. The space next to “emergency contact/next of kin” spoke volumes in its blankness.

Wayne glared right back at her, unmoving for a full minute until it became clear she wasn’t fucking around.

He huffed out a breath and scuffed a toe into the ugly linoleum. “He’s…my sweetie.”

Another glare from Nurse Least Favorite Person at The Moment. “Well, which is it? He your brother or your ‘bee-eff-eff’?  Or your sweetie?” she asked, and boy howdy if it didn’t feel to Wayne like she damn near screamed that last part.

“Both. Neither. _Yes_. It’s complicated.”

“Fucking hicks,” she muttered with a roll of her eyes. “Sit down and you can see him when he’s released. No exceptions. Take a _seat_.”

At that point, Wayne saw red. “Now LISTEN HERE,” he began. Out of the corner of his eye, he registered the security guard taking a step towards him, hand dropping to his belt where his taser sat. He rolled one shoulder, then the other, taking a deep breath and preparing for an all-out brawl. Just then, a hand grabbed his elbow, yanking him from the front desk. His sister.

She hustled him away, out the building while he squawked and flailed. “Pump the breaks, Wayne. I got a plan. Just do as I say and quit making a scene.” They stepped out the front doors and Katy dragged him around the corner and towards the emergency room entrance, dropping his arm and slowing her pace. “Just walk like you belong here and you know where you’re going; don’t make eye contact with anyone, and pretend you can’t hear folks if they ask you a question. I’ll handle the rest.”

Into the ER entry; past a moaning city kid on a stretcher; around two skids in the throes of detox shakes; through a pair of worried parents with their squalling baby; down the hallway and past the ER check in. Nobody stopped them, as everyone rushed around, attending to their own affairs or the affairs of their patients. Katy weaved in and out of the chaos with a practiced calm. Wayne trailed behind her, keeping an eye peeled for any more security guards, but those he saw didn’t seem to see them. They stopped for a minute to scan the directory, (You Are Here), on the wall next to the elevator.

“ICU?”

“Mayhaps.”

They made a few more turns down sterilized hallways, until they came to the ICU. There was, yet again, another check in desk, this time staffed with a cute young male intern, all curly blond hair, chin cleft and doe eyes. Katy swaggered over to him with a tiny smirk. “His husband just came through these doors,” she told the boy, tossing a thumb back at Wayne, who flushed against his will. She planted her other hand on the desk and leaned over so that her cleavage was eye level with the intern, and normally Wayne would have put a stop to that real quick but it was Darry on the line, fuck sake, and anyhoo he’d learned long ago that trying to put his foot down to anything his sister wanted to do wasn’t going to end well for him, so pitter patter he supposed.

She tossed some words back and forth with the kid for a bit, a flirt here, a wink there, and then he nodded and pointed to a sign that said Family Waiting Room, giving Wayne a telling glance. Wayne felt a little judged, but it was Darry on the line, fuck sake, so he let it go and followed the boy’s fingertip to the waiting room to sit, and stare at walls, and worry.

Katy plopped down in the seat next to him. “It’s just a piece of paper,” she reminded him in a low mutter. Of all the good god damn times.

_“Are you fucking preoccupied?”_

 

* * *

 

 

Three weeks later, the sun decides to make an appearance, and Daryl announces that “Cohabitating unmarrieds make up 14% of the population in Canada as of 2001,” whilst everyone sits around the produce stand. Wayne glances over at him—sun-kissed skin glowing tan and lively in the afternoon light, curls bouncing a bit as he talks, eyes squinting down at his phone, hand still bandaged up in white linen from his untimely visit to the ER, (and fuck all the revelations that _that_ had lead to)—and a surge of want claws up Wayne’s chest and takes residence right there in his throat. He clears it for lack of better idea.

“How’d’ya figure?”

“Says here in this article off google.”

“…’Kay.”

Squirrelly Dan cracks open another beer and shoves a hand full of potato chips into his mouth. “Bets ya that’s less here, in Letterkenny,” he garbles around the mouthful full of food, spraying out bits of chips as he talks.

Katy grimaces and drags her hair through her fingers in an inspection for wayward potato chunks. “Bet it’s more there, in the big city.”

“Of course it’s more in the city, fuck, god knows what those dee-gens get up to there, ‘s almost not worth thinking about so what’s the point,” Wayne mutters, glancing over at Darry, who has since looked up from his phone. “Seriously Darry, what’s the point?”

“Well the point being, the article goes on to say that cohabitating unmarried couples face all sorts of problems married people don’t face, such as—“

“—such as?”

“— _such as emergency medical access—_ “

“—oh well no shit you don’t say—“

“—and medical power of attorney, financial holdings, property holdings, tax holdings, last will and testament fittings, funeral fittings—“

“Pipe fittings,” Squirrelly Dan chimes in with a grin.

“Shut it,” Katy and Wayne retort as Darry continues to rattle off the list.

“What are you trying to accomplish here?’ Wayne finally interrupts, exhausted, and Darry smiles with a half shrug.

“’S just a piece of paper, Big Shoots.”

“Don’t fix what ain’t broken, Small Shoots.”

“’S far as I can see it’s already a bit broken, Half-Court Shoots,” Dan retorts.

Wayne sends a loathing look in Katy’s direction. “Zip it.” She grins back. Wayne glances back and Dan and he’s grinning too, eyebrows waggling and fingers drumming his thighs. “Zip it,” he repeats.

 

* * *

 

 

The next time it gets brought up, Wayne and Katy are sitting at the kitchen table in their annual meeting with their late parents’ estate planner, or as they like to refer to him, Oxygen Thief, or Mr. Boring Suit, (or sometimes, Tall, Drab, and Suicide-inducing (pronounced ‘Tee-dee-n-sEE’ depending upon how rude they’re feeling that day.) Daryl’s there this year at Wayne’s request, mostly to provide peanut gallery type comments that are bound to keep the other two wound up and amused.

The meetings are always a bit painful, due not to the smartin’ of losing their parents, which happened near a decade ago, but more to the droning, long winded nature of Mr. Boring Suit, a tall, sallow man with dull clothing (as aforementioned) and more words than personality. Since the death of their parents, his job has been to ensure that the farm doesn’t go bottom up and the siblings’ inheritance doesn’t go squandered on booze, but Wayne’s fast approaching his mid 30’s now, and is no novice to running things on the property. More and more he finds the man to be a thief of both Wayne’s time and oxygen. (Hence the other nicknames).

Being the older brother, and the one their folks had always expected to take on the bulkwork and the legacy of the farm, the majority of these yearly meetings focus upon him and his plans. It has always been apparent, to Wayne, to Katy, to their parents, and to the god above that Katy was meant for bigger and better things than Letterkenny, which frankly, Wayne was always on board with to begin with and for which reason he has never pitched a fit about her weekly trips to the city to pursue her modeling. Furthermore, Wayne likes his town, his farm, his way of life, and his contentment that he’s built here with Darry, so the fact that he’s deeded the farm and the majority of the responsibility doesn’t bother him much other than during the times when yield is low and sell points are, also. These meetings are the one drawback of the arrangement, however, because most of the attention gets focused on him, and to add to it, frankly, it always chaps his ass when someone treats his little sister like a flighty, dim, unfocused thing when really, she’s the brightest of their group, and be assured, Boring Suit does so consistently and with little remorse.

Said oxygen thief speaks. “So, as you know, you’re not getting any younger and as the older brother, the deed to the property falls to you, of course. Have you and Angie begun planning to have children?”

“Hard no,” Wayne replies.

“…because of course, you’ll need someone to eventually inherit the farm, keep it running once you retire, as you do,” he drones on, oblivious.

“As you do,” Darry repeats, deadpan.

“Unless Katy, you had any plans to take ov—“

“ _Hard no_.” She crosses her arms, kicking back from the table a bit.

“Okay then. So, what’s the plan here, now?” Oxygen Thief pulls his glasses off his face, rubbing the bridge of his nose as though he is very much put upon and overworked.

“Angie and I broke up,” Wayne reminds the man, just as he had the year before. And the year before that.

Boring suit doesn’t bother to look contrite, instead deciding to peer back down at his notes with a nod. “Well, if you don’t have plans to sell the farm—“

“HARD NO,” the siblings inject.

“Then you’ll need to designate someone to inherit the estate. You’re still young though, I have no doubt you’ll find the right woman, have a few kids,” he says, once again addressing Wayne.

“Or maybe Katy will,” Darry sings. Katy smacks him across the back of the head. Wayne shakes his head with a smile.

“Neither of us are much ones for kids.”

“A wife’r’husband’ll change that tune,” Suit assures them. Darry bristles for a moment, before Wayne glances at him. _Get yourself under control._

Katy, however, shows no compunction. “I’m fixed,” she declares without hesitation, “and he’s with a man, now,” she interjects with a finality to her words.

“A man?” Suit asks.

“A man,” Darry echoes. Wayne nods in solidarity for lack of a better idea. The three of them watch as Suit repeats the last exchange back to himself.

“A man.” He states finally, a bit stunned.

“A man,” they confirm.

Wayne nods again, then gestures to Daryl, who rocks his chair back onto two legs with a smug expression. “This man.”

“This man,” Darry echoes.

“…this man,” Boring parrots again, before letting out a long breath, then shrugging a shoulder, looking back down at his notes again. The three watch him visibly realign his game plan for their estate, eyes flicking back and forth over airborne financial avenues only he can see, and for a moment, perhaps for the first and only moment, Wayne admires the man’s adaptability and professionalism. Good for him.

“Well, there’s always adoption,” he exclaims brightly.

The trio groan in stereo. Wayne takes it all back.

“And, and, well, as your husband, you could lawfully add Mr. Daryl to the deed. The farm and any proceeds would fall to him, if something were to happen to you or Katy, without him having to go through the court to claim ownership.”

Point, suit. “Not married,” Wayne admits with a grimace.

The estate manager glances between the two men, perplexed. “Why not? I mean. You get all kinds of benefits. And, pardon my informality, but haven’t you both been friends for decades?”

“Yep.”

“It’s legal now. It’s been legal, for a while.”

“Yep.”

“Why wait?”

Darry looks at Wayne. Katy looks at Wayne. Wayne flushes against his will.

“Also, if something were to happen to you,” Suit soldiers on, and at this he raps his knuckles on their kitchen table, “Daryl would have a much easier time of it, in terms of taking over the estate, managing your final affairs, power of attorney, you know.”

Wayne scowls. “Can’t you just add him to the paperwork without the marriage business?”

Katy rolls her eyes, pushes herself up from the table, then waltzes off. “I’m going into the city,” she calls over her shoulder as she thunders up the stairs. Daryl finally leans forward again in his seat, chair legs striking the floor like a gunshot. Wayne winces.

“I wouldn’t recommend adding a unmarried partner to one’s long term financial affairs that one hasn’t, well, solidified a marriage pact with. It’s a lot more paperwork, for one. A lot more. And not all courts will honor the documents, even if they’re legitimate, depending upon one’s location. That goes for both heterosexual and homosexual couples.  Other family members can contest the documents, should the opportunity arise. And of course, it makes things much more complicated if you decide to split. Better to have a legalized, solidified marriage,” Boring concludes. He bobs his head slightly in apology.

“We’re solid,” Darry assures the man. Wayne nods in agreement.

Oxygen Thief shrugs helplessly. “It’s just a piece of paper?” He ventures. Wayne shakes his head, muttering.

“Figure it out,” Daryl says with a grin.

 

* * *

 

 

They’ve tried butt stuff before, of course they have, but so far it’s been a no go. Dan jokes that with the stick Wayne’s got shoved up his ass there’s not much room for anything else. Wayne knows he’s anal retentive enough to not argue.

Not to say that Wayne doesn’t want Darry—that he doesn’t desire him, physically and otherwise. He does, very much so, and in spades, to be redundant. He just has a hang up, a purely physical one, that he’s still been struggling to move past, even two years down the line from that first awkward barnyard hummer that had set off what would eventually turn into Wayne’s most satisfying and meaningful relationship with a helpmeet he’s ever had.

(Wayne still has hangups about using the words _lover_ and _boyfriend_ too, but that’s a whole other pig and he’ll fuck it later.)

But _they’ve tried buttstuff_. Several times. The last time prior was a month ago. Darry had finished up their evening meal of chicken and rice by standing up, clearing his plate from the table, leaning over Wanye’s chair and seizing his mouth in a brief but searing, brutal kiss; clearing Wayne’s plate from the table, and then dragging him upstairs by the hand.

(“Pitter patter,” Katy had toasted them from the couch before rolling to her feet and heading out for the night.)

Darry had laid him down on the bed, undressed them both slowly as Wayne’s pupils had dilated and his breathing had grown ragged and his cock had grown hard. He’d kissed him up and down his body, slowly, brushed his fingertips along the inside of his knees, massaged his work-sore calves and the soles of his feet, then grinned slow and long, and quirked an eyebrow in a silent question.

Wayne had swallowed and nodded, feeling loose, feeling good, and waited as Darry rolled off the bed and started digging through the junk drawer of his bedside table. He’d pulled out a bottle of lube—half used because sometimes they wanted some extra slip and glide when they gave each other hand jobs, and sometimes they did a thing where Daryl would hold his thighs real still and real tight together and Wayne would slip his cock back and forth between them and feel the length of his dick drag up and down the underside of Daryl’s.

Tonight, though, the understanding is clear; no simulated sex, no mouths or hands. Darry’d settled himself in the vee of Wayne’s legs, nudging them apart with his knees and coating his fingers until they glisten.

“You ready?” He’d asked, softly.

“Get after it,” Wayne had grunted, as he felt Daryl tap an index finger at his entrance. He tightened down on instinct, then exhaled slowly and tried to relax.

Darry’d leaned down and given a gentle kiss to Wayne’s abdominal muscle, sliding his finger in to the first knuckle. Wayne’d grunted, clenching, screwing his eyes up. “Aww, she’s bashful,” Darry had joked.

“You’re doin’ terrific,” Wayne’d muttered, forcing himself to relax while Darry slowly inched his way in. He rotated his hand so that it laid palm up, and crooked his finger, causing Wayne to full body shudder, digging his heels into the mattress and scrambling away and off of the offending digit.

Darry sat back on his toes, huffing out an affectionate laugh before flopping down on his side next to Wayne, pressing himself hip to hip with the older man, and seizing both their cocks with one work-roughened hand, as warm and as familiar as ever. Wayne gave him a dejected, heartbroken look and Darry chuckled again, lovingly, kissing the doubt off his face. “You’re allowed to say no, hon.”

“Yep.”

“You’re allowed to say ‘Darry, I don’t like that, hon.’”

“’S a matter of pride,” Wayne scowled out, settling down again on his back and throwing an arm over his eyes, hips still rolling under Darry’s grip.

“Which? Getting dicked? Or _not_ getting dicked?” Daryl asked, hand never slowing. Wayne thrashed his head from side to side in frustration.

 _“No, not that._ Not giving you what you want. You’re my. . .you’re my. . .”

Darry hummed in encouragement as he jacked even harder. “Yeah? Your baby? Your _sweetie_? Your _loverboy?_ ” he teased.

Wayne full body shuddered. “My everything,” he confessed, near a whisper. He felt Darry smile into his shoulder as his hand picked up speed.

“This. _This_ is all I want from you, Wayne.”

They came together, crying out.

 

* * *

 

Oh goodie, the hospital again. Except this time, it’s better and worse at the same damn time.

Darry lays in the medical bed, unconscious, while Katy paces at the foot of it and Wayne sits beside him, silent, subconsciously patting Darry’s hand with his own. Nobody’s denied him entrance to the intensive care this time…but Darry’s a lot sicker now; something with his appendix, and a decision has to be made soon on what to do about it.

The doctor, who in Wayne’s opinion looks way too young to be a doctor thankyouveryfuckingmuch Dr. Doogie Howser, go fuck yourself, stands in the doorway with his clipboard and a look of expectation on his face. Wayne shakes himself out of his funk. “What’s the scoot, doc, please and thank you.”

“I was just asking if you would be able to get in touch with Mr. Daryl’s next of kin? We need a decision made soon on whether to operate, the quicker the better.”

Wayne instantly climbs to his feet. “That’d be me.”

“Of course, sir,” the doctor says, glancing down at his chart again, “and you’d be the brother?”

“Lover,” Katy corrects him.

“Significant other,” Wayne corrects her, with an eye roll. “helpmeet.”

Doogie Howser nods again. “Okay, do you have documentation? Otherwise, we’d need for his parents to come in and sign off on the procedure. Next of kin and all.”

“His parents are dead. He‘s got no siblings. I’m his partner. I’m the closest thing to kin you’re gonna get, Doogie, so do the surgery. I’m telling you to. He’d want me to be the one to make the call.”

“But—“

“No butts. Pitter patter, time’s a wasting.”

“…okay. Just know, this is not exactly by the books. If he chooses to, he could, in theory, sue you for—”

“Pitter—“

“…I’ll send a nurse to come speak to you about aftercare.”

“—patter.”

The doctor leaves, closing the door behind him. Wayne can see him through the little window, now, summoning aids and barking out orders. At least he appears to know what the hell he’s doing. It loosens the softball sized knot in Wayne’s stomach a bit, but not by much. He puts one hand over Darry’s again, brushing his hair from his face with his other hand and speaking to his unconscious form.

“All right now Dar, time to stop dancing around it. You better heal up fast from all this because I think we’ve got stuff to discuss. “

Katy smiles to herself.

 

* * *

 

“You were wrestling with your sweetie and you had him in an arm bar and before you knew it you’d popped an awkward boner the other day…” 

* * *

 

 

Unlike Daryl, who’s always been a lot more sure about where he falls on the sexuality spectrum, who’s clearly had much less trouble with giving himself one clean label and leaving it at that, and who’s come to terms with who and what he wants at a much earlier age, Wayne still struggles with himself and where he sits. It’s not so much a linear process as a cyclical one; a roller coaster.  He’ll be perfectly at ease one day, content with himself, fuck all what everyone else thinks, and the next day they’re shopping at the beer store and he overhears a comment—some small town narrow minded quip that he really shouldn’t pay no mind to—and he’s off again in a spiral of fragile masculinity and counter-productive thinking. Which in turn means that he inevitably and unnecessarily holds Daryl at arm’s length for a day or so, which inevitably and unnecessarily makes them both miserable until Daryl has to be the mature one and deliver a good whack to the back of Wayne’s head. Then they fall into bed with vigor and the cycle starts all over again.

Wayne sincerely wishes he could get his shit together.

While he can’t pinpoint the exact moment that he fell in love with Darry, (at least not with the accuracy he can pinpoint the exact moment he gave into said love), he does remember his first inkling that things were heading in that direction, and if he ever decides to nut up and tell Daryl about that moment, he suspects his boyfriend/sweetie/husband-de-facto/helpmeet/what the fuck ever would be surprised at how far back this thing of theirs has been brewing.

He’d been thirteen at the time and headstrong, though god knows not much has changed, and he’d been running raw already that day from a fight he’d picked with a grade 8 that had gotten fresh with Katy. (“She’s a pre-teen, you fucking dee-gen!”) Walking back home with Darry at his side, the younger boy had teased him about something, something completely innocuous and to this day Wayne couldn’t even tell you what it had been about, but before you know it he’d been pressing his best friend into the dirt and they’d been scuffling like their lives had depended upon it.

Wayne had always been big and strong for his age—like his sister Katy he’d hit puberty early on—and a life as a farmer’s kid had put muscle where most kids those days still had the last clingings of baby fat to ‘em. Daryl, however, had always been a bit soft, a bit fey, with milk skin, curls and doe eyes, and Wayne had gotten three or four good hits in before he’d realized that he wasn’t even angry at Daryl, not even a little, and by then he was on top of the other boy, fist raised to deliver another blow, and his best friend was lying underneath him in the dirt, teeth stained red with his own blood and one eye swelling shut.

The rage in his belly’d curled into self-loathing, and horror, and complete shame, and he’d come closer to crying in that moment than he had since he’d had his milk teeth come in.  His fist fell limp to his side.

But then Daryl had smiled up at him from where he’d laid on the dry-packed earth.

“Feel better?” He’d asked, voice churned up like a cement mixer, and again, just as suddenly, the disgust in Wayne’s belly had turned to lust all at once, the blood in his brain had shot straight to his dick and it’d started to firm up in his jeans. He’d scrambled up off of him as quick as he could, before Daryl could feel it, and held out a hand.

_Fuck._

Daryl had accepted it, and let Wayne pull him to his feet, wincing a little.

“Christ, Der. I’m sorry.”

“’S no bother. You looked mad. Like you needed to let off steam a bit.”

“Yah, but that’s no—“

“I said it’s fine.” And just like that it was, the two of them continuing the walk back to Wayne’s parents’ farm, Daryl with blood in his teeth and Wayne sporting an uncomfortable chubby. They got home and snuck in, though needlessly it had turned out since both Wayne’s parents had been unusually unaccounted for, and Wayne’d pulled out the first aid kit and gently doctored up Darry’s battle wounds.

One thought had bounced through his head like an old fashioned game of Pong, over and over again.

_My god, I am done for, fuck._

* * *

 

 

 

Wayne’s doing his taxes this week and isn’t that just a kick in the balls. He’s doing them himself because the hell he’s going to pay a man to do something he’s perfectly capable of, please and thank you, and he’ll chase back the growing pain in his temporal lobe with another swig of whiskey because if you can be a man at night you can be a man in the morning. But seriously, _fuck taxes._

He’s got Daryl’s out in front of him too, in part because he’s doing a favor for his sweetie, and in part because Daryl works for him so it’s easier to just do them both while he’s got all the paperwork out, and in part because while he’s crazy about the younger man he’ll be the first to admit that his boy is book smart, day is long, but that doesn’t always translate to real-world brains like getting proper medical care and handling vehicle inspections and _paying taxes on time_ and if Wayne does them both at once, that’s one less thing that keeps him up at night.

So here he is, small business owner that he is, with tax books and government forms and last year’s paperwork covering the kitchen table, which groans under the weight of it all. Wayne groans in sympathy and takes another shot before pulling the tax code book closer to himself.

The whole time, as he’s been reading, he can’t help but keep going to back to the though: _I wonder if…_

‘Cuz see, there’s all these tax breaks for couples, of the common law married type and the legally married type, and _I wonder if this applies to us,_ and _I wonder if I could get away with claiming this_ and _I wonder if…_

Darry’s had some major medical expenses this year, expenses that not even their socialized medicine system, such at it is, has fully paid out to them. If they were legally married, Wayne could claim those as a tax break because _he_ paid those medical bills and at the end of the day he knows exactly how much he pays Darry and it’s not a huge sum because he doesn’t even take a huge sum for himself, hardly; choosing instead to pour most of their earnings back into the farm. It evens out for the younger man because the house they live in is paid for, the trucks they drive are paid for, neither of them have student loans and the only outstanding debt they have is tied to the farm, which, again, _small business owner._ Darry never sees a cent of that expense, and he doesn’t feel it in his pocketbook because it’s Wayne’s farm and Wayne’s pig to fuck, but at the same time, he’s never once asked for a raise and Wayne’s never offered one. It was never about that anyhoo, really. Daryl’s been working on the farm with them since he was a kid, free child labor, payment taken only in the form of spending time with Wayne, and as an adult, wages were really an afterthought, the result of Daryl’s mom dying when he was 17 and him needing to move in with Wayne and Katy just to survive. Daryl’s bills are paid for, and his wheels are paid for, and the food Wayne puts on his table and the clothes Wayne puts on his back are paid for, and Daryl’s farming salary has always been more of a monthly allowance for beer and smokes than anything else, even before the two of them fell into bed together. Wayne owns a farm and Daryl works on it, which, frankly, is as it should be; without a thought Wayne cares for almost all of Daryl’s financial needs in almost every way. In the sense of things, Darry is Wayne’s kept man, albeit one who busts his ass every day of the year for it.

Except now it’s time for taxes and while yield was high this year, prices were low and it would really behoove them both to cut costs and maximize that tax break any way they can.

_There’s a tax credit for married folks._

_There’s an additional bonus for married folks if the primary provider covered the medical bills of the dependent partner over the past year._

_There’s a way for married folks to transfer unneeded tax credits from one partner to another_ and Darry’s been taking some courses down at the local technical school, mostly to help save them some money at the mechanics shop when a tractor or backhoe inevitably goes down. Long story short, he gets a credit for education. Up ‘till now, Wayne’s been paying for the classes and writing it off as a business expense, but if he could transfer the tax credit to himself…

Suffice it to say he could save them all a bit of money. More than just smoke and booze money, too.

He wonders if he can get away with it. The laws say common law or legal marriage.

He files for the credits. _I mean fuck if we aren’t already, practically,_ he thinks.

 

* * *

 

 

After that initial fight and the subsequent awkward boner, he buries his feelings down for near another 10 years, and they don’t really surface again before then, but when they do, oh god, it’s with a vengeance.

He fights it for about six months straight, as Darry patiently waits for him to get his shit together. Never pushing. Just waiting in the wings with a tiny smile. Taking what Wayne has to offer and never pushing for more. And once Wayne finally gives in, lets himself be with his best friend, to love him and touch him and kiss him without the guilt, more or less, Daryl continues to not push for more. Wayne desperately wants to give him more though. He feels inadequate with just what he _can_ provide.

It takes a repeat of that 13th year to finally topple him over the edge of no return and no regrets. This time it’s not Wayne’s fists connecting with Daryl’s cheekbones and thank fuck for that. Wayne has no problem shadowboxing with Darry, will play fight with him and wrestle with him and teach him some moves because they’re still rural men, fuck. They’re shirt tuckers. They’re straight men with a bend to them when it comes to each other, (at least Wayne is), but they’re a bit of rough. So playfighting is fine. Tackling, roughhousing, a dunk and roll around in the creek after a long day of picking stones, that’s all well and good. But he’ll cut off his own hands before they ever lay upon his sweetheart in anger again.

So this time it’s a flashback to grade 7—someone at The New Modeen’s gets fresh with Katy. Wayne doesn’t step in immediately because Katy can handle herself just as well as anyone, but after she tells the guy _twice_ very clearly to fuck off _and he doesn’t,_ well, damned if Wayne’s just gonna sit there and let his baby sister get harassed unchecked by some degenerate. So he throws himself into the brawl, trusting Dar and Dan to have his back. Which of course leads to everyone in town pretty much throwing their hat into the ring. McMurrey takes a swing, Dicksen jumps in, the Skids end up caught in the middle; hell, even Angie’s gayer-than-every-suck-job-Wayne-has-ever-given husband decides to step in and before you know it chairs are flying and beer bottles are smashed and the whole thing culminates with Gale jumping onto the bartop with a genuine pitch black Louisville Slugger with a steel core, threatening to concuss the next shirt tucker to throw an elbow out. Then and only then does Wayne notice that there’s blood in Darry’s smile and he sees red, rage boiling up from his toes.

Suffice it to say, Katy hustles the four of them out of there before Wayne can begin the fight all over again.

When they get home, Squirrelly Dan excuses himself to the spare bedroom—formerly Darry’s—and Wayne pulls out the old first aid kit, sitting his lover down gently at the kitchen table.

He takes Daryl’s face in one hand. The other man winces and Wayne winces in sympathy. He pours some rubbing alcohol out onto a pad and starts in on an abrasion high up on his cheek.

“This hurt?” he murmurs.

“No more than your bloody knuckles I’d bet.”

“I’m fine,” Wayne answers, brushing a curl out of the way with one thumb and continuing to disinfect the wound.

Darry turns his head, then, to kiss at Wayne’s hand, cringing a bit at the bitter taste of the peroxide. Wayne feels his eyes crinkle in response.

“Been a while since we’ve been in a scrap.”

“Down right domesticated, we are.”

At that Darry grins, blinding, and everything else just slides into place and Wayne thinks, _My god, I am completely gone on you, fuck._

 

* * *

 

 

They’re in bed one night. For once the tide has turned, with Daryl lying on his back reading some shitty pulp sci-fi novel that Wayne wouldn’t touch with someone else’s dick, and Wayne curled up on his chest, and he squirms a bit so he can look Darry in the chin and takes a deep breath and says,

“So what about it then?” Shit, no, that’s not right. “Shit, no, that’s not right.”

He tries again. “Wannagetmarried?”

“Say again, Big Shoots?” Darry drops the novel to his side, Mona Lisa smile upon his face.

“You heard me.”

“Yup.”

“Fuck, fine, I take it back.”

“No takebacks. I just wanna hear you do it properly, is all.”

“FINE. Do you want. To get married.”

“To a girl?”

“Of course, to a girl. No, to me, ya tit fucker.”

“’Kay.”

“’Kay.” Wayne kisses Darry’s pec, then smiles into it where the other man can’t see.

“Why now?” Darry asks. Wayne sighs.

“Shoulda done it years ago. Been putting it off long enough. Not like that, I mean. Fuck. You know.”

“I know. But why _now?”_

Daryl looks down at Wayne from where he lays on his chest. Wayne looks up at him.

“Because I love you. Daryl. Shoulda said it years ago. Don’t know why I didn’t.”

Darry snorts. “Yeah, took ya long enough. Glad you caught up. Now give your balls a tug before you give yourself a crisis.”

“Fuck you, I take it back.”

“No takebacks. No having a crisis either.”

“No crisis,” Wayne assures, settling in further.

“Town’ll have a fit.”

“To hell with ‘em.”

“Katy’s gonna go buck wild with it.”

“Softest wedding ever.”

“We don’t have to have a ceremony you know. We can head to the city, hit up the courthouse, bing bang done.”

“Yup.”

“It’s just a piece of paper, after all.”

Wayne looks back up at Darry. Pushes up on his forearms, crawls up a bit so he can kiss the underside of his chin, his jaw, his cheekbones.

“The hell it is,” he murmurs, before pressing Daryl into the bed with a bruising kiss. _The hell it is._

 

**Author's Note:**

> So I’m gonna love you now, like it’s all I have.  
> I know it’ll kill me when it’s over.  
> I don’t wanna think about it. I want you to love you now. (Love me now.)


End file.
